With John McCain dropping more and more hints that his Veep choice will be Tim Pawlenty (yeah, okay, whatever, wake me up when the campaign is over), conservatives hoping for a better outreach by McCain to the Conservative Movement will want to consider this Pawlenty quote from John J. Miller’s piece in the most recent National Review: “The era of small government is over,” he told a newspaper two years ago. “Government has to be more proactive, more aggressive.” In other words, message from Pawlenty to the economic, small business-oriented, Milton Friedmanite backbone of both the Conservative Movement and the old Republican heartland: “Bleep you. Bleep you all.” And that will be the same message McCain sends us if he picks Pawlenty…. who now, for what it’s worth, is dropping like a rock on my list of picks conservatives could be at least reasonably satisified with. In fact, he has now dropped OFF my list.

Now, IF McCain picks Pawlenty and IF that ticket actually does carry Minnesota, I will loudly acknowledge that, politically at least, I was wrong, and will figuratively eat crow and my hat all at once. Even then, I still probably won’t be thrilled with the idea of Pawlenty as the new Heir Apparent.